25th Lap Around the Sun.!

Keeping the tradition alive! Below is a recount of 25 moments from the last year to celebrate my 25th birthday (in mostly chronological order). I am filled with gratitude. Thanks to everyone who has been a part of this wild and wonderful journey. 

one.

Finding treasure & enjoying all the little moments in-between. Those moments are after all, the majority of our existence...

two.

Solid lady scramble in the Tetons. Nothing like an aesthetic summit to make spirits soar...

three.

Running The Rut. See my blog post from last year for more insight. :)

four.

Followed by a lady visit on the east side. Canoeing + mountains = awesome. 

five.

Photo: Beau Fredlund

Superb scrambling/running adventure with Beau just before the Churchill departure. Glacier National Park is truly something else... 

six.

Another incredible season in Churchill with Polar Bears International. There is always so much to learn and see. The Arctic has and always will capture my heart. 

seven.

Dove right back into Montana life with a dip in the boiling river en route to my new home in Cooke City. 

eight.

Got a day on the ice in with Caroline & Rob during the Bozeman Ice Festival. Always nice to get out and swing some tools! Frozen waterfalls are cool. 

nine.

Beau & I were fortunate to have lots of great visitors this winter. Thanks to Brody & Alyssa, Nick, Emily & Pat, Pat & Hilary, Noah, Varney, Totem & Truax, and anyone else I've forgotten. What a wonderful winter. 

ten.

Yurtski shenanigans with David Powder Steele, Brody Leven, Bobby Jahrig, Rachel Delacour, and Tyler Swank. Too much fun. Check out the video. 

eleven.

Beau and I had one of our best days all winter on a new route in January. It was wild to be able to ski safely in such high consequence terrain so early in the season. 2014/2015 will go down in the books for it's stable conditions. Wild winter....

twelve.

I was fortunate to get to hang with the Patagonia crew at the Beartooth Powder Guides cabin and yurt in March. Thanks for letting me tag along to capture the experience. 

thirteen.

Convinced my dad to come visit and do some backcountry skiing this winter! We hadn't skied in the backcountry together since I was a kiddo skinning up the side-country at Bridger Bowl. He had so much fun that he got a dynafit setup and came back multiple times. 

fourteen.

Had the good fortune to visit Slovenia on a ski trip with a lady crew. Lips zipped until the story comes out. Stay tuned. 

fifteen.

Really enjoyed working with Adventurers & Scientists for Conservation this year. It was a privilege to collect their first fresh water micro plastics samples in Slovenia & Italy. 

sixteen.

Oh Mose...Thank you for your kindness and hospitality. Occasionally you meet people that you know you will be friends with forever. Mose is one of those people for me. Namaste amico. 

seventeen.

Photo: Beau Fredlund

Went on an Electric Peak adventure with Beau in the spring. Double thumbs up. 

eighteen.

And ventured to Glacier Peak... a peak I have been reading about and dreaming about since I was in high school. 

nineteen.

One of the most fun and most rewarding projects I got to be involved in this year was in my own backyard. It was such a treat to join Keely's Camp for a 3 day backcountry skiing trip with 6 teenage girls. The photos captured are some of my favorites of the year. Props to Keely and co-instructor Linsday Mann. Passing the torch. 

twenty.

The deeper you get. The deeper you get. 

twenty-one.

PNW trip with the boys & my first experience skiing volcanos ever! The tick list has grown... 

twenty-two.

Work and life often blur together for me— which is wonderful, I absolutely love it. In June however my grandparents treated me to a real vacation! We spent 5 days in Cape Cod and I didn't work at all. It was amazing... and jumping into the Atlantic Ocean with my 79 year old grandpa was pretty amazing too. 

twenty-three.

Polar Bears International asked if I could come up and assist with a live beluga whale boat camera installation this summer. It was incredible to see the whales and the unique Subarctic ecosystem in its summer glory. Thanks PBI!

twenty-four.

Jeanette... the woman who taught me about spirit food. #dontwakethesleepinggiants

twenty-five.

After another incredible lap around the sun I woke to a dusting of snow on my 25th birthday— the perfect present from mother N. So grateful for such a wonderful journey with such wonderful friends. Love to you all. 

A Volcano Love Letter

Beau and I took a quick trip out to the Pacific Northwest recently to do some volcano skiing. I had never been on the NW Giants, nor a volcano- ever, and was excited to explore a -new to me- style of terrain. 

We only had the opportunity to visit two of the monoliths, but each was stunningly beautiful and awe-inspiring to say the least. Their sheer size is enough to make your jaw drop and your eyes wide. 

We had a wonderful day skiing the Easton Glacier on Mount Baker with a posse of friends- including high school ski partners Scott Larson and Nick Webb, and a new friend Mark Erickson. 

The Easton Glacier route is a massive sheet of glacial ice dropping from the summit to the rainforest below. The contrast of lush forest and stark glacier left an impression on me. As we approached the crater, a familiar sulfur smell filled the air- it reminded me of the geysers of Yellowstone. It seemed so surreal, almost fake its wildness. I couldn't believe I was standing on the rim of the crater of a volcano. It almost seemed like a place I wasn't supposed to be. The chances are slim, but I mean… really? 

It was a big beautiful day, but we felt pretty good. For the amount of distance and vert we covered, I felt like there weren't too many shenanigans involved (sometimes our MT adventures require a lot more mental and emotional commitment). 

We took a rest day and staged ourselves for a go at Rainier- the giant of all giants, in all its enormous wonder. We started up the trail at 3am. It was hot. I stripped down to my T shirt immediately. As we approached in the dark the paved tourist trails turned to dirt. They emitted heat- a lot of heat. When we crossed the first snow patch it seemed like the temperature dropped 10 degrees. There was a very notable difference in temperature when on snow vs. dirt as we traveled from patch to patch in our sneakers. It must have been at least 50 if not 60 degrees. 

We hit snow and skied down the first slope to the bottom of the Nisquali glacier. The snow was soft, it hadn't frozen overnight at all, not even close… and was doing that hot weather, mashed potatoes, lurchy, grabbing thing. You know- the kind of thing when you're skiing down and it's like someone is grabbing the bottom of your skis every few feet. We transitioned to skins and ski crampons and started our way up the glacier. We crossed some crevasses and holes. 10,000 feet of mostly serac hung above us- it was intimidating. I stopped the group and expressed my concern about the warm temperatures. It hadn't frozen overnight, we were crossing holes, and serac (guaranteed only to warm up more) was hanging above us. Everyone else thought we could make it through ok and that on skis it wasn't too much of a concern. We continued on. 

After traversing about 5 miles around the base of the mountain to the Southwest side we began making our way up. We were moving pretty fast, a good pace given the temperature and scale of the mountain, but it was warming quickly. We crossed a soft bergschrund and entered the bottom of the Success Couloir proper. It was as if we had just entered a toaster oven. We had been surprised earlier to see a party above us, and now we were thankful for the boot pack they had left behind. We began climbing the route as fast as we could. I am not much of a sweater- I just don't perspire that much, but I was sweating, profusely. Sweat was dripping off the side of my face and hair, it felt like it was 70 degrees. 

Fortunately the snow conditions seemed quite stable. Firm but softened by the sun. However as we reached 12,000 ft we encountered something I'd only seen before in Bolivia- penitentes- aka snow cups gone sour- stalagmites of snow reaching for the sky with craters in between and hard- nearly frozen- snow metamorphosing into ice… 

We were at 12,200 feet with 2,200 more feet to go to reach the summit, of which there was a high likelihood would be covered in penitentes… We called it there and started re-tracing our steps down the mountain. The first 500 vertical feet of penitents proved to be quite difficult skiing. Nick went first, 'grooming' the tops off as much as he could with each successional person following in his tracks, until it was relatively reasonable for the last.

We crossed some soft holes and an even softer 'shrund. I was thankful to not be crossing them any later in the day, when it would have possibly been warmer. We made it back to the car around 4pm and began weaving our way through traffic back to downtown Seattle. 

It was magnificent to be up on Mount Rainier. It would have been nice to summit, but sometimes I like getting shut down. I like having to return and come back again. It feels good to pay dues in a way. I feel like if I was always succeeding, I would be taking too many chances, too many risks, not turning around enough… 

The biggest realization I had was how little snow there truly was on the volcanoes this year. It can definitely be attributed to a 'weird' season, but I fear that it is something bigger than that… Given the amount of snow we saw on Mount Rainier I am afraid to say that I think this summer is going to be really hard on that mountain and the glaciers that it holds. I wouldn't be surprised to see routes completely change due to glacial melt, or even to see routes dissappear. Mount Rainier as it is known right now, might be a very different mountain in the fall of 2015. Time will tell… 

I appreciate everyone's optimism that next year will be better, and it probably will. But I can't help but wonder if this ski season is waking people up a bit, causing people to think about their actions and their impact on the planet… Winter is changing, and skiing is changing and I fear the the future of our sport is in great danger at the moment… I hope our species is smart enough to stop climate change, before the winter landscapes that we love disappear completely. 

poem.

Oh to be in the mountains

among the ice and snow.

The fading days,

the beaming rays,

the wrinkles all a glow.

Oh to be in the mountains

where time takes a different beat.

          Thoughts clear         

as does fear, 

from many hours on your feet.

A moving meditation.

A silent appreciation.

Oh to be in the mountains.

Oh to be..

***

turn off the noise.

where nothing is something

... and something is nothing?

the west without us.

When the bison gather in large herds like this I enjoy imagining what it must have looked like to be an indian cresting a rise above a lush valley 200 years ago- a sea of brown below, with sagebrush, winding streams, and not a fence in sight... (Anyone looking for a good read I highly recommend My Life as an Indian by James Willard Schultz which paints vivid pictures of these scenes.)

To those of you who can't fathom humans having a big enough impact to effect the climate, I ask you to consider the decimation of the buffalo, the clear cutting, deforestation, acid rain... Humans have done a lot of harm, reversing some, or at least halting it, and causing irrecoverable damage at times. Let us learn from the past and #actonclimate before it's too late!

Here is a list of 8 ways you can do your part:
1. Stop buying plastic
2. Make your home more energy efficient
3. Vote with your dollars (buy local!)
4. Eat less meat & know where it came from when you do
5. Decrease your transportation carbon footprint
6. Recycle, compost, and reduce your waste as much as possible
7. Tell your representatives you care about the environment and ask them to vote for action on #climatechange
8. Teach our children to do the same

and two more from friends on instagram...
9. Don't step foot in big box stores
10. Get rid of your television

I'm not perfect, and you won't be either, but at least we can try, and together it makes a big difference.

cliche mmm..k